Petro Poroshenko deliberately created complications for the Zelenskyi administration through a new law on the Ukrainian language

Summary of Disinformation

At the end of his term, the fifth president of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, managed to harm the new president of the country, Volodymyr Zelenskyi. In order to complicate the Zelenskyi administration’s work and provoke social tensions in Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, before the inauguration of Zelenskyi, specially signed a new law “On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a state language”.

Conspiracy theory, consistent with recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation about the language law in Ukraine. See previous cases here.

The Verkhovna Rada passed the law "On ensuring the functioning of the Ukrainian language as a state language", on April 29, 2019. The law establishes mandatory use of the Ukrainian language in most areas of public and communal life, including the mass media.

The law was submitted to a vote by the Verkhovna Rada in back 2017. In October 2018, the Verkhovna Rada adopted the draft law on the state language in the first reading. At the end of February 2019, it began consideration of the second reading, which lasted almost two months. The President of Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, signed the law, in line with his Constitutional powers at the time.

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